


The Legend of Kent Parson's Sex Hair

by editingatwork



Series: The Definition of Reality [1]
Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: M/M, Obsessing, Pining, Similes, kent's hair, or maybe not pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-19
Updated: 2016-12-19
Packaged: 2018-09-09 19:04:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,986
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8908375
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/editingatwork/pseuds/editingatwork
Summary: “You look like you got debauched in the back row of a Beyonce concert. Twice.”





	

It’s not a problem. That’s what Swoops tells himself, for a straight year. He didn’t believe it, when he got traded to the Aces, this ridiculous urban legend being whispered and giggled over by the senior players when their captain wasn’t around. He hadn’t believed it until the Aces had a Lord of the Rings marathon at Jeff’s house and he saw the transformation happen for himself.

Kent Parson has sex hair.

Not on purpose, of course. He’ll shower and comb and use product, and start the day out looking fresh and presentable—Swoops has  _seen it_ —but six hours in and just the sight of him makes a person feel like they’ve caught him stumbling out of a broom closet with cum on his lips.

Swoops had been sitting next to him on the couch. Between one dramatic scene and the next, Kent’s shirt collar had come unbuttoned, he’d developed a flush in his cheeks, and his hair had gotten so messy that Swoops would have  _sworn_  that Kent—or someone—had been tangling their hands in it for the last hour.

“What the  _fuck_ , dude?” Swoops had yelped.

Kent had looked at him, shrugged, and gone back to watching the movie.

Swoops discovers that everyone on the team, from coaches to physical therapists to their PR team, is aware of this phenomenon. And they all tacitly ignore it. At first Swoops spends half a day wondering how the hell the general public hasn’t noticed it, but then they have practice and the answer is stunningly obvious: everyone looks that wrecked when they get off the ice. If, by chance, Kent Parson happens to look a little more “fucked over the back of his sofa” wrecked than “played a hard game of hockey” wrecked, well, it’s a fact of the universe that Kent is sex on legs. The press and the fans are used to it by now.

Hell, Swoops has seen it in publicity stills for all of Kent’s career. He just didn’t realize how lethal it was in daily close proximity.

Because, holy shit, Swoops is a pansexual man with some serious game, but five minutes in the presence of Kent fresh out of the shower looking like someone relentlessly fingered him to tears while he was in there, and Swoops can’t string two words together for  _shit_.

It’s better on the ice. Playing hockey distracts him. It’s easier to talk to Kent when he’s bundled up in his gear. Kent is sex on legs and he’s  _pornography_  on skates, but a game takes Swoops' focus away from panting after his captain and onto playing some goddamn hockey.

Swoops makes it through his first season physically, if not mentally, intact.

With free time on his hands, he makes a case study of Kent Parson.

First, he sets up an Instagram account, with the blessing of the PR team. It’ll give him an excuse to take photos constantly, while also giving him reason to be picky as hell about what he actually posts. 

Next, he makes it his mission to spend as much time with Kent as possible. It’s not hard; Kent lives locally, not far from the rink, and he lives alone with just his cat for company.

(”Don’t let him hear you say that,” Sunny warns, less than a week into preseason.

“Say what?”

“That Kit is ‘just’ a cat. Trust me. You don’t need to be on your captain’s shit list your first season on the team.”)

Kent is, as expected, happy to spend time outside the rink with his new teammate. He seems baffled by the selfie obsession at first, since Swoops spent all of September through March pretending his phone didn’t have a camera, but he lets Swoops snap photos of them readily enough. He even takes it upon himself to steal Swoops’ phone and photograph him in front of Las Vegas landmarks; just tens of hundreds of photos. Kent will then sit next to him in a corner booth at some hole-in-the-wall burger joint and go through all those photos until he finds one that he thinks is good and that he can get Swoops to agree on.

Swoops doesn’t mean to actually use the Instagram account, but he does. A lot. So much that his mom emails him to say how happy she is that he’s enjoying Las Vegas.

Swoops isn’t, really. Las Vegas is okay but it’s hot and dry and full of poisonous wildlife. If he was going to settle down somewhere, he’d pick somewhere with fewer cacti and more diverse weather. He’s not enjoying Las Vegas, but he is enjoying his time with Kent.

Although he still hasn’t cracked the mystery of how Kent can walk into a cafe looking decent and walk out of it looking debauched. If he had some kind of observable evidence he could pin it on, like Kent obsessively running his hands through his hair or going into a bathroom and coming out messed up, the transformation would at least make sense. But Swoops will be literally talking to Kent, looking right at the man’s face, and just suddenly notice that, shit, he needs to get Kent out of here, there are  _kids_  here.

He’s developing a tolerance to it. (Sort of. The number of erections he has around Kent Parson has gone down 60% since he started hanging out with Kent regularly, although they last 30% longer and are 100% more frustrating, so it’s not really an improvement.)

Swoops starts his second preseason, and then his second regular season, with the Aces, and he is still unable to let this go.

In the end, he doesn’t so much figure it out as he just gives up trying.

The Aces play a particularly brutal and aggressive game against St. Louis and end up losing it, half a minute before the buzzer. It’s on home ice and it’s unbelievably frustrating. Everyone showers and changes and goes home upset. Swoops gets roped into the post-game media frenzy in the locker room along with Kent. When they’re finally allowed to leave, they dawdle in silence, both wanting to give the press time to vacate the hall so they can slip out unmolested. Swoops takes an extra-long shower and glares at the drain all through it.

When he gets out, Kent is dressed and sitting in his cubby, playing on his phone.

“You didn’t need to wait, man,” Swoops says, but he’s grateful that Kent did. “Thanks.”

Kent shrugs, doesn’t look up from his phone. “No problem.”

Swoops puts on the bare minimum amount of clothing required to go out in public and be considered “decent.” When he swings his duffel bag onto his shoulder, Kent pockets his phone and gets to his feet. They leave the locker room and go out into the hall, which isn’t empty but isn’t flooded with mics and cameras.

They’re almost to the underground parking lot when Swoops glances at Kent. And then he just loses it.

“What the fuck, man?”

Kent jumps a mile. “Shit, you gave me a heart attack. What are you yelling about?”

“You!” Swoops gestures to Kent, who was  _clean and dressed and modest_  when they left the locker room, but is now the very picture of a guy who’s been ridden hard and fast in the back seat of limo. His hair is under a snapback but it’s still a mess, little ringlets going everywhere, his t-shirt is way too tight and is hitching up his hipbones so little strips of skin peek through, his jeans are sagging near halfway down his goddamn ass, and there’s a bruise under his jaw that Swoops  _knows_  is from his helmet strap, but it looks like a hickey.

Swoops wants to put his mouth on it.

Kent is staring at him like he’s lost his mind. Which is appropriate, because Swoops feels like he has. He gestures at Kent again and demands, “For the love of god, Parse, please tell me you’re aware that this happens!”

“That what happens?” Kent looks down at himself, then up. “It’s just my clothes!”

“You—” Swoops checks for witnesses, steps close, and hisses, “Parse, you have sex hair.”

This doesn’t appear to clarify things for Kent. “What.”

“Your hair, Parse. It’s a mess.”

“’Cause it’s been under a helmet for two hours.”

Swoops shakes his head. “No. It’s not just today. It’s every day. Every single day I’ve known you, you’ll start out looking fine,  _normal_ , but after a couple hours you just—do this. Get all—” He makes wavy hand motions because there are certain things one does not say to one’s NHL team captain, and “Get all flushed and messed up and sexy” is at the top of that list.

Kent’s still looking at him like he’s crazy but there’s a definite element of amusement now. “Is this why you spent the whole summer acting like my own personal paparazzi?”

“I was trying to... fucking... document it.” Swoops feels lame saying it out loud. “I thought if I could, I don’t know, pinpoint a timeframe or a cause, it wouldn’t seem so weird.  _Please_  tell me you know. The whole team sees it, it’s not just me.”

Kent chuckles. “You sound like you’re trying to prove the Loch Ness Monster, here.”

“It is kind of a team urban legend.”

“No kidding?” Kent looks around the hallway. There’s a couple of doors along it, but no people. Nobody has come by in the whole time they’ve been talking, and Swoops hasn’t even heard anyone come near. Kent shifts his duffel bag on his shoulder and says, “Well, I’ve never seen it. The ‘sex hair’ or whatever. Is it really that bad?”

Swoops eyes the full scope of Kent’s dishevelment and says honestly, “It’s bad.”

“Yeah? How bad?” Kent’s got an eyebrow up and a knowing smile on his face, like he can see into Swoops’ brain right then.

Swoops goes cold. “If you’re trying to get me to incriminate myself or some shit—”

“I’m not,” Kent says quickly. His voice is softer. “Swear to god, I’m not.”

Swoops takes a breath. “You look like you got debauched in the back row of a Beyonce concert. Twice.”

Kent licks his lips. “Yeah?”

“Like you just lost your virginity in a bathroom stall at Prom,” Swoops continues, because now that he’s started he can’t stop. “Like you got jerked off in a side alley outside a club. Like your motorcycle-riding boyfriend bent you over his Yamaha at an empty rest stop in Utah. Like you went to kiss someone under the mistletoe and got fucked against a wall instead.”

Kent’s pupils are blown and his cheeks are so flushed they look like they’re bruising.

“Like you just blew your new starting forward at center ice after winning the Stanley,” Swoops finishes, because Kent may as well know that this isn’t just observable fact, it’s a crush. “That’s how you look.”

Kent takes two tries before he finds words. “Christ, Swoops.”

“Yeah, well, you asked.”

“Christ,” Kent repeats. He looks around the hallway. “What about getting my brains fucked out in a supply closet?”

Swoops looks over his shoulder. There’s a door not six feet away. He looks back at his captain.

Kent shrugs. “You can see if having actual sex affects my sex hair. You know, for science.”

“That’s insane.”

Kent is already walking over to the door and yanking it open. “Shut up, get in here, and debauch me.”

There are certain things one does not say to one’s gorgeous NHL team captain, and “I’ll pass on fucking you in a supply closet until you cry” is at the top of that list.

Swoops follows him in, yanks the door shut, and locks it.

In the end, they stumble home, both of them wrecked and grinning, and Swoops completely forgets to document the results of his new study.

**Author's Note:**

> i'm on [tumblr](http://punmasterkentparson.tumblr.com/).


End file.
